Good Letters

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday: “I Stand and Knock”

By Daniel Priest

What pulls me into this poem is the way we’re drawn into a cosmic drama which is, finally, salvific.

The title, combined with the very first lines, brings to mind Matt. 7:7, “knock and the door will be opened to you” and Rev. 3:20, “behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Holding these lines in our minds, we get an image of a cosmic crucified Christ, with “the whole world / spill[ing] through the hole he’d torn / in his side.” As the “wind” of the Holy Spirit blows through the poem, Christ is calling your name, our name, my name. (“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!”—Isaiah 43:1)

God is at our door, calling us by name; but it is a God who is dreadfully wounded, slumped down on the porch in blood and contorting pain. This suffering, “someone” says, shows how much he “cares.” Cares for you, for me, for every one of us. So it is, finally, an image of love. The greatest love possible: divine love. And this love is “open hands” and “a door.”

Your open hands, your spread-open palms, pressed toward where His were. That door that “will be opened to you,” opening you to Christ’s crucifying but transcendent love.